Legislator Seeks to Fix New York State's Divorce Laws

Bill Would Overhaul Alimony Law, Set New Awards Formulas

By

Sophia Hollander

June 11, 2013 10:22 p.m. ET

Just three years after New York passed sweeping changes to its matrimonial laws, a legislator has proposed an overhaul of its alimony guidelines, including setting new formulas to determine the length and amount of post-divorce awards. The legislation would also abolish an unusual legal precedent that treats professional degrees as marital assets.

ENLARGE

The changes came in response to a report from an independent commission last month that recommended sweeping changes after a nearly three-year study. Not all of the report's recommendations were incorporated into the new bill, prompting criticism from divorce lawyers who worried it would be rushed through before the legislative session ends on June 20.

"We're really just trying to accommodate a lot of interests in a very quick fashion," said Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, a Westchester Democrat. "I think everybody's very pleased with the direction that we're going."

Not everyone agreed.

"We believe this bill should be rejected," said Michael Stutman, president of the New York chapter of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. The chapter's board of managers held a unanimous vote to oppose the bill and would be urging members to protest, he said.

One proposal that received almost universal praise: The bill would eliminate a part of New York's law that treats licenses or professional degrees earned during marriages as marital assets. Judges—with the assistance of often-expensive financial experts—currently attempt to calculate how much someone might ever earn as the result of a license or degree, and then award the person's spouse a percentage of the future earnings. The award can't be changed, even if the person switches careers or suffers an injury that makes working impossible. It has been widely condemned by lawyers across the state as unfair.

Still, the benefits were outweighed by the bill's faults, many said. The new bill is an attempt to amend legislation passed hastily in 2010 that imposed a formula for calculating temporary maintenance, which occurs between the filing and the completion of a divorce.

The formula, which applied to people earning up to $524,000, was intended to provide more consistency in awards and protect low-income New Yorkers, who have fewer resources to hire lawyers.

It seemed to work well for that population, but failed to address issues of high-income couples, including mortgage payments, one-time bonuses and additional costs such as private school. In some extreme cases, payor spouses were forced to pay more in alimony, child support and other costs than they earned each month.

Under the proposed legislation, the formula would apply to income up to $300,000, whereas the Law Revision Commission had recommended a cap of $136,000, the same threshold as for child support. A higher cap means more higher-income New Yorkers are affected.

It will also be used to calculate post-divorce alimony awards. The duration of those awards will be governed by a separate formula for the first time. The commission had rejected a formula to determine the length of alimony.

The proposed legislation would also change a long-standing law that ends alimony payments if the receiving spouse remarries. Under the new law, the alimony, or maintenance, would only terminate if the marriage substantially improved the spouse's financial situation.

This "opens the doors wide open for litigation," said Jacqueline Silbermann, president of the New York Women's Bar Association, noting that it would also subject a new spouse's financial records to extensive scrutiny.

Lee Rosenberg, chairman of the Nassau County Bar Association Matrimonial Law Committee, said: "Special interests are trying to push this bill through at the end of a legislative session just like they crammed" through the original 2010 bill.

Ms. Paulin, the bill's author, disagreed. "I just don't know how much more we can learn," she said. "I just don't honestly know that we're going to get more information."

The New York chapter of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers is now considering drafting its own legislation as an alternative to Ms. Paulin's bill, Mr. Rosenberg said.

Whether Ms. Paulin's bill will gather enough support to pass is unclear. Supporters and opponents were scrambling to rally troops with calls and letter-writing campaigns to legislators, as the end of the session looms.

"I actually think it is a really good, fair, thoughtful bill," said Emily Ruben, supervisor of the family law and domestic violence practice at the Legal Aid Society, who was involved in the drafting of the original legislation.

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